September Birchbox | Review

One of my favourite times of the month as arrived, no not payday, my other fave, Birchbox Delivery Day. Birchbox has once again gone with a theme and this time it was Happy Days. I must admit seeing the box and the vibrant colours did make me happy. 

After I was left a little disappointed from my last Birchbox my hopes weren't that high for this one, but when I saw the theme and saw the little spoilers, I started to get very excited again.

I really enjoy when Birchbox gets into a theme and always try to reuse the prettiest boxes, so you know I'm going to have to use this one for storage. There was a lot of speculation about what would be in this one so I thought I would show you what I recieved in mine. 

Benefits, It's Potent eye cream

Starting with the thing I was most happy to recieve and that was the Benefits, It's Potent eye cream. I absolutely love Benefit samples, most brands spend very little on their samples with regards to packaging but Benefit always stays true to it's brand and put just as much effort in the sample as the full sized versions. This is a teeny tiny sample but it's in a gorgeous little glass jar, I'm so gonna keep and use again. Packaging is a massively important thing for me hence why I am rambling. 

I haven't actually tried this product before, but I've heard some amazing reviews it's supposed to banish dark circles so I'm really excited to try this one out, it smells really nice as well, really fresh. 

Plush Therapy Mid Dermabrasion Face and Body scrub

This face and body scrub has Italian olive granules, which is quite a cute sample. The only thing is because it's small I could probably only use this on my face but as I don't use scrubs on my face I'm just going to have to use this sparingly on my body. Maybe a couple of days after I've had a leg wax or something but I always love a body scrub. 

Model Co lip lacquer

I also recieved Model Co lip lacquer in the shade Morocco, which I felt a little indifferent about. I quite like the shade though, it's got a slight autumnal feel about it. I'm not the biggest fan of lipglosses mainly because I wear my hair down a lot and the wind always blows the wrong way and I end up with my hair stuck to my lips, NEVER a good look. When I pulled the wand out of the tube it was incredibly stringy, gloopy and messy so I was a bit reluctant to try it but was won over by the way it looked on. It's a really pretty shade, but I've just got to make sure I don't use too much of it at once. 

Korres Shower Gel 

This was the only thing I wasn't happy to see when I opened my box which is the Korres shower gel in Citrus. I've actually discussed this with a pal , who loves the Korres shower gels and to be honest I'm sure it's great but it's the scent I don't like. I actually received the Korres body milk in the citrus scent several Birchboxes ago and I just couldn't get on with it. It smells a bit manly for me, I like floral or sweet scents and I like shower gels to be quite creamy and moisturising so this just isn't for me.  

I am however going to give it to my mum, she likes these types of scents.

Agave Healing Oil

Moving swiftly onto Agave healing oil for hair. To be honest, I don't know much about the brand or the product but if it's supposed to help with my hair I'm willing to try. The oil smells amazing, literally almost edible so I've very excited to try this out on my hair. I have quite bad ends in teh sense they always split, year of straightening it everyday is to blame. Now I am trying to be a bit better and nicer to my hair so I can't wait to try this out. 

And finally onto the fun lifestyle pieces, Urban Fruit Strawberries and Birchbox photograph holder. I was so happy when I saw the Urban Fruits and even more some when I realised they were strawberries, I love Urban Fruit and most dried fruits to be honest, so I'm going to devour these in seconds. The photo clip I'm probably never going to use, but it's a nice touch and I love the it kept with the theme. 

Overall a pretty good box. 

What did you get in yours this month?

NIP+FAB Glycolic Fix | First Impression

I thought I would do a "first impression" post on the NIP+FAB Glycolic Fix Pads, normally I would wait at least a month to do a full review but I literally bought these last week Monday and had to share with you my first thoughts on them.

I was reading a review on the Glycolic Fix Pads by the incredibly talented Gemma from www.missmakeupmagpie.com and I literally ran out straight away to buy them, I'm lucky because I have a Superdrug right by my office. Gemma writes THE best beauty posts and anything she recommends is always amazing.

Glycolic Fix, claims to help resurface the skin on your face by getting rid of old dead skin and encouraging new skin growth, these exfoliating pads contain 2.8% Glycolic Acid. They also contain hyaluronic acid and blue daisy which moisturises and soothes the skin. They cost £12.95 for 60 pads, which possibly is a little pricey, but having read good reviews I just wanted to try them out. 

I have a fair amount of acne scarring which I loathe and if there is a chance that a product can make it slightly better then of course I want to try it.  It suggests you to use them either once or twice a day but because my skin is so awful I thought I would use them twice a day, once at night and once in the morning after I have washed my skin.

After the first time I used them I was literally so impressed, I mean after just one pad I noticed a difference. I was expecting something good but I didn't realise it would be this good! I gave my face a really good rub with these pads to make sure I was targeting my problem areas such as my cheeks and my nose. I may have rubbed a little too hard as my face was fractionally red and I don't think this is as a result of the pads it's just my eagerness to make them work. My skin the next day looked amazing, it looked so fresh.

I must talk about the scent of these as well, I was kinda worried that they would smell quite chemically but actually they smell really amazing they have something called Blue Daisy to help moisturise the skin as well so they smelled a little floral. They are a pleasure to put on my face. 

Now let's talk about the actual results, so far the skin on my nose has literally transformed, normally it used to be quite bumpy and my pores were massive and just looked awful. After a week my pores are smaller, I have fewer blackheads and it's really smooth. The one thing I will point out and I'm not 100% sure there this is a direct result of the pads or not but I've noticed that the skin on my nose is slightly more oilier than what it used to be. My skin type is pretty average, not too dry, not too oily so I can notice when it does go one way or the other, but to be honest a little bit of powder and it looks fine. It's not a massive issue. 

When it comes to my cheeks I have noticed a small difference, the reality is that I have quite large scars on my cheeks so I may need something with a higher concentrate of Glycolic Acid to see a bigger difference, quicker but even after week I'm still impressed. My skin feels smoother on my cheeks and my make up blends better on these problem areas now. 

I am in love with this product and I want to try more from this range. 

As I said this is just my first impression, I will write a full review after I have finished the pot.

Have you tried any of the Glycolic Fix range?

My Olay Essentials miracle cream

I've been awful with posting things lately, work and life has been too busy. So I thought I would post about what I deem to be my miracle cream. 

As you may know I'm super fussy about what goes on my face regarding products. I used to have horrific acne and went on hardcore medication which completely dried out my skin. My skin was so dry that is was literally flaking off everywhere and looked just awful. 

I tried every cream out there but so many were too greasy and actually did nothing for my dry skin. I really was getting so tired of trying all these products, spending an absolute fortune and having rubbish results. My friend mentioned that she used Olay beauty products and her skin is gorgeous, literally flawless so I thought I'd try something from this range to see whether it could work for me. This was about 3/4 years ago and I've never looked back...

This is Olay essentials double action sensitive day cream. As soon as I started using it I knew that I'd picked up something special. It really did feel nourishing without feeling heavy and my skin started looking better with everyday that went past. All my dry patches started to disappear and I didn't have to use too much of it, just little dabs here and there. It's a fair sized pot that probably lasts me about 2 months to get through and is priced around the £5 mark it's so worth it.

As I said I still use it today my skin isn't dry anymore, I came off the medication a couple of years ago but I still love the way it leaves my skin. Even if I have a tiny patch that's dry I know that this will fix it every time. 

What are you miracle products?